"This is your little sister's grave, Thaine. She staid with us less than a day, but we loved her then and we love her still. Her name was to have been Mercy Pennington Aydelot, after the sweet Quaker girl your two great-great-grandfathers both loved. Such a big name for such a tiny girl! She isn't here, Thaine. This is just the little sod house she holds as her claim. She is in a beautiful mansion now. But she binds us always to the Grass River Valley because she has a claim here. We couldn't bear to go away and leave her little holding. And now you've come and all the big piece of prairie soil that is your papa's and mamma's now will be yours some day. I hope you'll want to stay here." A stab of pain thrust him deeply as he remembered his own father and understood for the first time what Francis Aydelot must have felt for him. And then he remembered his mother's sacrifice and breadth of view. "Oh, Thaine, will you want to leave us some day?" he said softly, gazing down into the baby's big dark eyes. "Heaven give me breadth and courage and memory, too," he added, "when that time comes not to be unkind; but to be brave to let you go. Only, Thaine, there's no bigger place to go than to a big, fine Kansas farm. Oh! we fathers are all alike. What Clover Creek was to Francis Aydelot, Grass River is to me. Will it be given to you to see bigger things?" Thaine Aydelot crowed and stretched his little legs and threw out his hands. "Thaine, there are no bigger things than the gifts of the soil. I may only win it, but you can find its hundredfold of increase. See, yonder comes your mother. Not the pretty, dainty Virginia girl I brought here as my bride. But I tell you truly, baby boy, she will always be handsome, because--you wouldn't understand if I told you, but you will some day." "Oh, Asher, the new baby is splendid, and Mrs. Bennington is ever so well," Virginia said, coming up to where he sat waiting for her. "They call her Josephine after Mr. Bennington's mother. Thaine will never be lonely here, as we have been. After all, it is not the little graves alone that anchor us anywhere, for we can take memory with us wherever we go; it is the children living, as well, that hold our hearthstones fast and build a real community, even in a wilderness. We are just ready to begin now. The real story of the prairie is the story of the second generation. The real romance out here will be Thaine Aydelot's romance, for he was born here." CHAPTER IX THE BEGINNING OF SERVICE Amid all the din Of the everyday battle some peace may begin, Like the silence of God in its regal content, Till we learn what the lesson of yesterday meant.